December 17, 2011 The paper "Role of partial miscibility on pressure buildup due to constant rate injection of CO2 into closed and open brine aquifer" by co-author Seyyed Hosseini has been published in the journal Water Resources Research.

December 12, 2011 Kerr-Weyburn Investigation. Katherine Romanak, Changbing Yang, and Brad Wolaver were part of an international team of scientists that investigated allegations of leaking CO2 at a farm in Saskatchewan. Their extensive field and lab work contributed to a 180-page study released by IPAC-CO2, an an environmental, non-government organization. The study found no evidence that carbon dioxide was leaking from geologic reservoirs. “The CO2 injected by Cenovus Energy as part of its enhanced oil recovery project is not the source of CO2 found on the Kerr farm,” said Dr. Carmen Dybwad, Chief Executive Officer of IPAC-CO2. “The levels of natural CO2 we found were normal.” IPAC-CO2 has also released a documentary on the events in Weyburn. Regina, Canada

December 5, 2011 Trans-Atlantic Research to Business: CCS in EOR. Tip Meckel will give talk on monitoring and EOR at a 1/2 day meeting of CCS stakeholders from the UK, Norway, and Canada. Houston, TX

December 2-3, 2011 GCCC/Houston British Consulate Collaborative Technical Workshop. Attendees from Norway, UK, and Canada meet with Tip Meckel and other GCCC staff during a 1.5 day workshop focusing on CCS monitoring and capacity. Austin, TX

GCCC researcher Vanessa Nuñez speaks about EOR at the Petroleum Engineers Club of Dallas.

November 27-December 5, 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference. Katherine Romanak was invited to present a talk titled, "Geologic Carbon Storage; Monitoring and Environmental Impacts," at the Carbon Capture and Storage Association's official UNFCCC side event at COP17. The side event, 'CCS in the CDM', was aimed at informing negotiators and other delegates about various aspects of CCS technology and its potential inclusion in the CDM (Clean Development Mechanism). STORE's Hilary Olson also attended. Olson and Romanak's presence at the meeting in South Africa demonstrates how GCCC and STORE outreach efforts are playing a role in informing international negotiations on carbon capture and storage. Durban, South Africa

November 15, 2011 Two new journal articles on CO2 monitoring are authored by GCCC researchers. "Sensitivity of groundwater systems to CO2; application of a site-specific analysis of carbonate monitoring parameters at the SACROC CO2-enhanced oil field," by Katherine Romanak, and Rebecca Smyth, Changbing Yang, Susan Hovorka, and Jiemin Lu has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control. Jiemin Lu is lead author on a paper published in the Journal of Chemical Geology, "CO2-rock-brine interactions in Lower Tuscaloosa Formation at Cranfield CO2 sequestration site, Mississippi, U.S.A." For more information on the papers, please click here.

November 1-2, 2011 2011 International Forum on CCS and Energy Storage Technologies. Susan Hovorka attended the conference and presented "Storage Technology in the USA - case studies in monitoring large and small volume CO2 Injections." Taipei, Taiwan

October 28, 2011 The National Academies Division on Earth & Life Studies. Susan Hovorka was invited to present a talk on "Geological Storage of Captured Carbon" as part of the DELS Frontline Issues Special Session. Irvine, California

October 21, 2011 Next Generation Project: Texas Assembly. As a sponsored fellow, Tip Meckel joined 50 young leaders from around Texas to foster cutting-edge, innovative solutions to our shared global challenges. The Assembly gathers the best and brightest young business and academic leaders from around the state to discuss issues through rigorous, responsible debate. This meeting focused on energy, economic development, the environment, and U.S. global policy. Fort Worth, TX

September 27-30, 2011 The Midwestern Governors Association (MGA). In partnership with the Great Plains Institute, GCCC’s Alliance for Sequestration Training, Outreach, Research and Education (STORE), Denbury Resources, Southern Co. and the Southern States Energy Board, MGA organized a public-private regional delegation to Texas and Mississippi to focus on commercial enhanced oil recovery using CO2-EOR. The delegation visited commercial CO2-EOR operations and received expert briefings about technical, economic, project development, and environmental aspects of EOR and about successful policies and public-private partnerships that have helped expand the commercial CO2-EOR industry in the Gulf Coast region, including opportunities for using this technology for storage of CO2. STORE contributed a workshop on Wednesday, September 28, at the Houston Research Center, which included presentations and viewing of cores. Texas and Mississippi

Sue Hovorka discusses Frio cores, EOR and carbon sequestration before a field trip to
Denbury's West Hastings Field.

September 19-23, 2011 The Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) 4th Ministerial meeting. The CSLF is a ministerial/cabinet-level (e.g. energy minister/secretary) global initiative focused on the development of CCS. The event was highlighted by a day long open and closed meeting of energy ministers including US DOE Sec. Stephen Chu. The conference also served as a platform for several other announcements and side-meetings including the US-China Clean Energy Research (CERC), which has numerous joint CCUS activities. Logan West participated in the conference, helping to release the Guidelines for CCUS in China and reported for the Exchange Monitor. Beijing, China

GCCC graduate student Logan West with Jerry Fletcher of West Virginia University, director of the CERC – Advanced Coal Technology Consortium at the CSLF Meeting in Beijing.

September 11, 2011 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Technical Workshop. The workshop made progress toward allowing CCS projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the UNFCC. Ninety-one delegates from 33 countries and an array of experts, including Katherine Romanak who presented a talk on groundwater protection, attended the workshop. Presentations will inform the UNFCCC Secretariat who is preparing options in a negotiating text for Parties in Durban later this fall. Abu Dhabi

Katherine Romanak speaks before the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
in Abu Dhabi

September 1, 2011 UT Energy Symposium. Carey King gives featured talk "Historical Energy Overview & Why There is No Consensus for the Future." Austin, TX

July 28, 2011 KEPS-KORDI CCS Workshop. Jiemin Lu gave a presentation titled “Overview of GCCC activities and monitoring of CO2 injection at Cranfield.” The workshop is organized by the Korean-American Energy Exploration & Production Society and funded by Korea Ocean Research & Development Institute. KORDI has begun research on geological storage of CO2 in offshore Korean geological units. The goal of workshop is to update research status and share knowledge among the research communities of two countries. Houston, TX

July 27, 2011 GCCC Hosted a visit to BEG from Charlie Brankman of C12 Energy. Staff shared knowledge related to well completions and monitoring. Austin, TX

July 26, 2011 Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) Capture and Storage Technical Meeting. Susan Hovorka presented an update on the SECARB early test results. Birmingham, AL.

July 18-22, 2011 Fifth International CO2 Capture and Storage Summer School. Post–doc Zahid Khandaker attended the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme summer school hosted by the Illinois State Geologic Survey at the
University of Illinois. Champaign, IL

Zahid Khandaker (back row, 3rd from right) with members of his presentation team
at the IEAGHG Summer School.

July 2, 2011 Pew Center on Global Climate Change. As member of the stakeholder working group that will help in the development of a CCS methodology, Susan Hovorka reviewed the Accounting Framework report prepared by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Austin, TX

July 1, 2011 GCCC hosted a visit to BEG from geologists from StatOil’s Gulf of Mexico Research Organization. Torhild Gillebo, Head of the Exploration and Reservoir Characterization Unit, and Tor Anders Knai, a structural geologist leading fault and seal activitie exchanged information with BEG personnel on Gulf of Mexico activities. Austin, TX

June 24, 2011 GHG Reduction Technologies Monitor This weekly newsletter provides information and insight on development of systems and technologies that will allow operations that inherently produce greenhouse gases to continue and adapt. The June 24 issue featured a new process-based method developed by Katherine Romanak and Changbing Yang along with other collaborators at GCCC for identifying leaks from CCS projects.

June 17-18, 2011 BIGCCS Centre International. Susan Hovorka served on an 8-member scientific advisory committee. BIGCCS is a Norwegian technology center with the goals of building expertise and closing critical knowledge gaps of the CO2 chain, and developing novel technologies in an extensive collaborative research effort. Jaegtovolden, Norway

Katherine Romanak and Tim Dixon of IEAGHG present new work on using natural releases of CO2 for stakeholder communication in Trondheim, Norway.

June 13-25, 2011 Energy, Climate and Water in the 21st Century. GCCC's education and outreach partner STORE participates in a two-week professional development workshop on for middle- and high-school teachers in collaboration with The TeXas Earth and Space Science (TXESS) Revolution program and the Texas Water Development Board. The workshop highlights connections between energy, climate and water for 25 teachers from all over Texas (and one from Jamaica). STORE provides expertise for several activities on carbon capture and storage and a field trip to Luminant's Oak Grove Power Plant and Kosse Mine. Austin and surroundings, TX

Becky Smyth discusses the geochemistry of carbon dioxide with high school teachers attending the STORE/TXSS Revolution workshop in June.

June 10, 2011 Altmark Natural Gas Field. Katherine Romanak observed a permanent monitoring gas membrane system, which has been installed in a natural gas field in northern Germany. The system has collected continuous background concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane for several years. Romanak discussed future collaboration. Salzwedel, Germany

Stefan Schloemer of the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources performs routine maintenance at a permanent soil-gas monitoring station in the Altmark Natural Gas Field.

June 9, 2011 CO2CARE Workshop. Susan Hovorka was invited to be a member of the steering committee for CO2Care - CO2 Site Closure Assessment Research, an international partnership focused on post-injection technology and safety. The workshop also included an excursion to the Ketzin Injection Site. Potsdam, Germany

June 5-8, 2011 STORE GirlTalk Workshop. GCCC's outreach and education partner STORE held a four day interactive workshop for middle-school girls focused on energy issues in the 21st century. Rio Grande Valley, Texas

May 26, 2011 The GCCC welcomed Curt Oldenburg from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, who gave an overview of the carbon program at LBNL. Austin, TX

May 17, 2011 The Gulf Coast Carbon Center welcomed several members of C12 Energy, a company that is planning commercial storage projects. Co-founder and president Kurt Zenz House gave a presentation on the company's efforts and discussion with GCCC staff followed. Austin, TX

May 6, 2011 The Gulf Coast Carbon Center welcomed Joseph Essando Yeddu, member of the Ghana Negotiating Party to the United Nations Climate Change and Kyoto Protocol, who discussed the role of carbon sequestration within the United Nation's climate change framework. Austin, TX

Congratulations to The University of Texas Imperial Barrel team, which includes GCCC student Erin Miller. The team placed first in the most prestigious petroleum geosciences competition for students in the world. For a full report please see the press release: http://www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/rels/041411.html. Houston, TX.

GCCC's Erin Miller was part of the IPA team that brought top honors to Austin.

April 8, 2010 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Texas San Antonio. Katherine Romanak gives a talk to graduate students in the Environmental Science and Engineering CE 6221 Graduate Seminar on her work in the Southeast U.S. Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership in Cranfield, Mississippi. San Antonio, Texas

March 25, 2011 American Association of Petroleum Geophysics’s Imperial Barrel Award Program. The Imperial Barrel Award Program (IBA) is an annual basin/prospect evaluation competition for geoscience graduate students from universities around the world. University teams compete to win scholarship funds dedicated to graduate student petroleum geoscience education. The program is rigorous and contributes to AAPG’s mission of promoting petroleum geoscience training and advancing the careers of geoscience students. Erin Miller is a member of The University of Texas at Austin's IBA team, which took first place in the semifinal competition. Miller and her teammates now proceed to the international finals. Houston, TX

March 7-8, 2011 GeoFORCE Texas Professional Development Workshop. As part of STORE, GCCC's education and outreach program, Susan Hovorka, Katherine Romanak and Hilary Olson, as well as UTIG's Jon Olson led a professional development workshop entitled "Energy and You: What to do with CO2". GeoFORCE Texas is the nation's largest college prep program for earth sciences. Almost 50 middle- and high-school teachers from southwest Texas and Houston attended the two-day event, which covered the broad issue of our future energy mix, how fossil fuels fit into that mix, and how technological solutions, such as carbon capture and storage, play a role in the options for 21st century low-carbon footprint energy sources. Austin, TX

March 5, 2011 Explore UT. During The University of Texas' largest open house of the year, GCCC's booth "What to do with CO2" explained the basics of carbon sequestration using models and demonstrations. GCCC staff Susan Hovorka, Khandaker Zahid, Jiemin Lu, Katherine Romanak, Seyyed Hosseini, Vanessa Nunez, Sigrid Clift, Carlos Puerta, Hilary Clement Olson, and Juli Berwald, as well as BEG's Bridget Scanlon, Valentina Prigiobbe, Melissa Garcia; Ursula Hammes, Reuben Reyes, and Sojan Mathew took turns entertaining and educating a steady stream of elementary, middle, and high school students and their parents throughout the day. See coverage in the Daily Texan.

Juli Berwald, free lance science writer for the GCCC, shows students how
hydrocarbons
become carbon dioxide using styrofoam balls and pipe cleaners.

March 1-4, 2011 Weyburn -Midale CO2 Project. Katherine Romanak attended a planning meeting with IPAC-CO2 regarding a study of near-surface soil gas. The trip also included a site visit. Saskatchewan, Canada

March 1, 2010 The Austin Forum on Science, Technology & Society. Tip Meckel presents "Put It Back - Geological Sequestration for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction" before a crowd of well over 100. The Austin Forum is a monthly speaker series that hosts distinguished leaders who share their knowledge and experience about the confluence of science, technology and society in the 21st century. Austin, TX

Tip Meckel delivers talk on carbon sequestration at the Austin Forum.

February 28, 2010 4 Kingdoms CCS Initiative: First Technical Workshop. The goal of the Initiative, formed by the four kingdoms of Saudi Arabia, Norway, The Netherlands, and the UK, is to identify and address technical issues, including gaps in knowledge, which could impede further commercialization of CCS, to act in a coordinated manner to enhance expertise on CCS, and to encourage the sharing of knowledge and the transfer of technology. Susan Hovorka presents an overview of the GCCC’s work at Cranfield, MS. Over 150 international experts participate in the workshop, including a visit to Saudi Aramco’s Shabah facility. Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia

February 8, 2011 The University of Texas School of Law Continuing Legal Education. Susan Hovorka and Tip Meckel participate in conference "The Future of Texas CCS - 2011 and Beyond". Meckel presents lecture titled "Offshore Geologic Storage Study". Austin, TX

February 1, 2011 Florida Geological Survey. Susan Hovorka presented a two hour lecture and Q&A hosted by Andy Smith of the Florida Geological Survey at the USGS field office in Tallahassee FL. USGS COSTA Lead and expert in Florida geological sequestration capacity Tina Roberts Ashbey was also present to answer questions. Tallahassee, FL

January 8, 2011 The Texas Tribune. Susan Hovorka quoted in article "Aided by Oil, Carbon Capture Projects Advance in Texas". For full story click here.

Carbon dioxide, produced by combustion of fossil fuels, exceeds global assimilative capacity and may result in negative impacts on the ocean and climate. The Gulf Coast Carbon Center (GCCC) seeks to impact global levels of atmospheric greenhouse-gas emissions by

Conducting studies on geologically sequestering CO2 in the deep subsurface, focusing on the Gulf Coast,

Educating the public about risks that might limit deployment and measuring the retention of CO2 in the subsurface, and

Enabling the private sector to develop an economically viable industry to sequester CO2 in the Gulf Coast area.